Earlier this month Hazel Watson (former national lead for Mental Health and Learning Disability) stepped into her new role as Director of Nursing (Deputy Chief Nurse) for the South – working closely with our Regional Chief Nurse, Sue Doheny.

Sue remains the Regional Chief Nurse with a joint role across NHS England and NHS Improvement, providing clear leadership and greater collaboration across both organisations to ensure delivery of strategic aims and ultimately better care for patients.

In her joint role, Sue provides professional leadership to all members of the nursing and midwifery professions in the region, bringing greater clarity for front line staff, while delivering the regulatory and statutory functions for which both organisations are accountable.

Prior to the past four years as Head of Mental Health and Learning Disability nationally, Hazel spent most of her working life in the south. In this new role as Deputy Chief Nurse she will help strengthen our capabilities to deliver on our strategic aims by taking the regional lead on specific areas of work, for example safeguarding and continuing healthcare, while also supporting nursing colleagues at regional and local level.​

​Reflecting upon her time as head of Mental Health and Learning Disability and looking ahead to the new challenges and opportunities she foresees as Director of Nursing for the South region, Hazel explained:

“Monday 3 July was my first day as NHS England Director of Nursing for the South region. It happened to coincide with the announcement that following on from the news about the South split, NHS England and NHS Improvement in the South region are going to be work together more collaboratively. So, some changes ahead, but then dealing with and managing change is part of what we do in the NHS.

“I would not have said I was an obvious choice for a regional position (whatever the size of the region) as I am a learning disabilities nurse with a background in mental health and learning disability services, but I have a passion for nursing leadership, clinical governance, quality, and ultimately getting it right for people no matter what service they are receiving, and I hope to bring all of that to the regional role.

“I am not new to the region either; I have worked in and around the south for most of my working life, most recently as Director of Nursing in Avon and Wiltshire Partnership Mental Health Trust, and before that in 2gether in Gloucestershire. However, for the last four years I have been working at NHS England National Nursing Team as the Head of Mental Health and Learning Disabilities, including clinical leadership for the Transforming Care programme. This has been a great opportunity for me, to learn to deliver across the whole of England at scale and pace and to work with a fantastic team of colleagues, including team members with a learning disability – the first in NHS England!

“I know I will bring my mental health and learning disability expertise to my new role, and I can already see how useful that will be. However, this role is much broader than that so I shall also be taking the regional lead on safeguarding and continuing healthcare among other things, as well as supporting nursing colleagues at regional and local level.

“I believe nurses are part of the lifeblood of the NHS. As the providers of intimate care – be that physically intimate, or emotionally intimate – we are in a unique position to work with people and families to support their recovery and their health. Our leadership role is critical to the delivery of quality services, and we have a professional responsibility to ourselves and to the public to ensure our voice is heard, advocating loudly for people and families.

“I am hugely looking forward to working with you all.”

Meanwhile John Trevains Joins NHS England’s national team as Head of Mental Health and Learning Disability.

​As we welcome Hazel to the South region, we bid a fond but not very far farewell to John Trevains, former Assistant Director of Nursing, Patient Experience, Safeguarding and Mental Health Homicide Investigations (NHS England South Central). John has joined NHS England’s national team, taking up the helm as Head of Mental Health and Learning Disability.

Hazel explained: “I have handed this mantle to John Trevains who many of you will know from his role with NHS England South Central. John and I worked together in Gloucestershire; he is a fine nurse and I am very happy that he is taking forward the work.”

The last year has seen a huge amount of progress in relation to this ambitious Mental Health and Learning Disability portfolio, particularly on the Transforming Care programme front – where work is happening to reduce inequalities by improving physical health and wellbeing.

John said:”I am proud and excited to be the new Head of Mental Health and Learning Disability, working with an excellent team. So far a key component of the work to reduce inequalities has been around access to primary care. Lots of work is happening to increase take up of Annual Health Checks, as well as encouraging the use of Summary Care Records so that wherever someone is in the health system, their support needs will be flagged. This continues to be a big priority.

“We have also worked with Mencap on the fantastic Don’t Miss Out campaign to make GPs and their patients with a learning disability more aware and likely to make health checks happen. We are grateful to the Royal College of GPs for publishing a set of resources to help doctors do the health check. We also have a set of communications recourses developed in the South region for health and social care colleagues and advocates, including families and carers to use. There is also now a template on most of the GP IT systems to do a learning disability health check.

“We continue to make progress on the first national review into the deaths of people with a learning disability (LeDeR), to learn from what is working well and where further improvements can be made. We have also built a cross-system coalition, including all the royal colleagues, people with a learning disability and their families and carers to stop the over medication of people with a learning disability (STOMP) and challenge poor practice across the country. Our social care partners have recently backed the STOMP pledge too, with 90 organisations having signed up. Collectively they support in excess of 34,000 people with a learning disability, autism or both.

“There is still a huge amount to do. In the next few months, I will be strengthening the focus on improving access to cancer screening and also working with our new family carer employees to make it easier for people to raise concerns and complaints. Watch this space.”

Further information about the Transforming Care Programme can be found on the NHS England South website.